Author: Michelle Korhonen

You would think, with prices as high as they are, that Americans would have tempered their enthusiasm for shopping of late; that they would have pulled back spending on luxury items; that they would have sought out budget and basic options, bought smaller packages, fewer things.This is not what has happened. Consumer spending rose 0.2 percent, after accounting for higher prices, in October, the most recent month for which the government has data. Online shopping jumped 7.8 percent over the Thanksgiving long weekend, more than analysts had anticipated. The sales of new cars, dishwashers, cruise vacations, jewelry—all things people tend…

In Todd Haynes’s new film, May December, an actor named Elizabeth (played by Natalie Portman) arrives in Savannah, Georgia, for a very particular assignment. She intends to study the life of Gracie (Julianne Moore), a woman who became a tabloid fixture in the ’90s after she, at 36 years old and with a family of her own, was caught having sex with a then-13-year-old boy named Joe. Elizabeth is set to play Gracie in a movie, and she’s struck by Gracie’s blithe demeanor when they meet. More than two decades after the scandal broke, Gracie has built a seemingly idyllic…

This article was featured in the One Story to Read Today newsletter. Sign up for it here.Why did they do it? What was the angle?A presidential candidate such as Ron DeSantis usually would never waste an evening only weeks before the make-or-break early primaries debating a telegenic noncompetitor for a TV pseudo-event. Yet there was DeSantis onstage in Georgia, creating content for Fox News, opposite Gavin Newsom, the sharp-tongued California governor who has publicly ridiculed DeSantis for months.For the Democrat Newsom, the angle is pretty straightforward. He’s a presidential aspirant trying to elbow his way past a serving vice president…

This is an edition of the revamped Books Briefing, our editors’ weekly guide to the best in books. Sign up for it here.I love music, but I never learned to play an instrument (something I still occasionally blame my parents for—though, as a father myself, I should know better). The mechanics and language of music are a blind spot for me—a deficiency I was reminded about as I tried to edit a recent essay from Anthony Tommasini, the former chief classical-music critic for The New York Times. Tommasini reviewed a new book about the composer Arnold Schoenberg, whose early-20th-century experiments…

In 1967, South Africa’s National Parks Board made a fateful decision: The elephant population in Kruger National Park, which had been rising steeply, should stay stable in order to preserve the other species living there. Each year, wildlife managers would choose a number of elephants to cull—usually somewhere from 350 to 500. The animals were shot, their carcasses necropsied, and their meat salted and dried for food.After international uproar and a change in management practices that separated the park into different zones, Kruger stopped culling elephants in 1994. As a result, the park’s elephant numbers swelled from more than 7,800…

This is Atlantic Intelligence, an eight-week series in which The Atlantic’s leading thinkers on AI will help you understand the complexity and opportunities of this groundbreaking technology. Sign up here.One year ago, ChatGPT was released into the world. The startlingly human-sounding chatbot kicked off the generative-AI revolution and quickly became one of the most successful internet applications ever—invading classrooms, workplaces, online stores, and more. The program has created billions of dollars of value where none existed before and enabled entire new skills and fields of work around coaxing useful responses from chatbots.But perhaps more important than any direct, material change,…

Bromberger Hoover / GettyDecember 3, 2023, 11:26 AM ETMy ancestors ride wit me.They twerk on the roof of the Uberas I’m pulling up late to the party.They gas me full tank andyas me in the mirroras I summon them out of me withmy mascara wands and glitter andevery time I draw my eyes onNana you encourage meto keep my chin lifted upwards,my eyes filling up with stars.I know I walk onsalt blood water tears.I know the earth has beenbeaten down and made gangstabut sometimes, e hoas,I just want to party.My ancestors ride wit me.Don’t tell me what they would do.I…

The now-former Republican representative George Santos was a perfect fit for the show’s satire.Will Heath / NBCDecember 3, 2023, 12:23 PM ETSaturday Night Live loves to put a politician in front of a piano. Most famously, Kate McKinnon, playing Hillary Clinton, sat down in front of the keys and earnestly belted Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” following Clinton’s loss to Donald Trump in the 2016 presidential election. It felt like a moment of contrition for the program that had invited Trump on as host during his campaign, to much criticism.Last night’s episode had another political piano bit, but this time it was…

Christopher Furlong/Getty Images Christopher Furlong/Getty Images Around the globe, about 1 in 4 adults says they’re lonely. And the consequences of long-term social disconnection can be dire — everything from an increased risk of heart attacks to dementia and premature death. But social isolation isn’t new or uncommon. And pangs of loneliness aren’t catastrophic. In fact, they’re nearly universal. What’s critical is how people respond to these feelings when they arise. “Just like thirst is a signal you need hydration, loneliness is a signal that you need human connection, says Dr. Jeremy Nobel, a primary care physician and author of…

The best way to understand last week’s unusual debate between Governors Gavin Newsom of California and Ron DeSantis of Florida is to think of them less as representatives of different political parties than as ambassadors from different countries.Thursday night’s debate on Fox News probably won’t much change the arc of either man’s career. DeSantis is still losing altitude in the 2024 GOP presidential race, and Newsom still faces years of auditioning before Democratic leaders and voters for a possible 2028 presidential-nomination run.What the debate did reveal was how wide a chasm has opened between red and blue states. The governors…